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Back Off, I’m Armed With Snark

Oh great: Yet another dumbed-down MSM rumination on snark, that mix of sarcasm and reductive wit that’s come to dominate modern online discourse. Like all snark attacks, this one quickly traces its history from Mark Twain’s caustic dis-missives to Spy magazine’s egalitarian razzing to the cynical weariness of Gawker.com‘s comments section. And, of course, there’s the requisite hand-wringing about how snark made the already babble-headed punditocracy even more facile, and how it somehow turned the most discerning readers into a bunch of knee-jerk jag-offs.

But what about the upsides of snark? It serves as a much-needed corrective to the slick sycophancy of corporate media, making healthy skeptics of us all. More important, though, the early-’00s snark tsunami led us to reconsider the roots of our wryness. Heidi Julavits’ 2003 essay in The Believerdenouncing snark as a “disorder” inspired others to reexamine their own reflexive bitterness. That introspection helped give rise to a wholly new cultural species: an emo apex-predator whose quip-scarred armor covers an expansive heart. Look at the ascent of distinguished empaths like director-screenwriter David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook ) or author George Saunders (Tenth of December ), both of whom prove that snark can be a helpful reaction—so long as it’s not your only one.